Origin of Third Degree

The classification of the qualities of objects by degree - heat and cold, moisture and dryness etc. - was commonplace in the middle ages. Henry Lyte's translation of Dodoens' Niewe

herball or historie of plantes, 1578 includes a description of rue:"Rue is hoate and dry in the thirde degree."

Shakespeare went on to apply the degree classification to drink, in Twelfth Night, 1602: "For he s in the third degree of drinke: hee's

drown'd: go looke after him.”

Present Meaning

“The third degree” is well-known to all US crime-fiction enthusiasts as “an intensive, possibly brutal interrogation” appearing as early as Forbes (1900)

In Masonic lodges there are three degrees of membership: Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason. When a candidate receives the third degree in a Masonic lodge, he is subjected to some activities that involve an interrogation and it is more physically challenging than the first two degrees.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xjs6iTjdJc&feature=player_embedded

CHAPTER 7 – GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY IN GERMANY & THE UNITED STATES

Dr. Nancy Alvarado

Gestalt Psychology

This was the major alternative and challenge to structuralism during the early 20th century. Founded by the successors to the people in

Chapter 6. Gestalt means “shape” or “form.” Major proponents:

Max Wertheimer – developed Gestalt principles Kurt Koffka – developed laws of perception Wolfgang Kohler – worked with apes on insight Kurt Lewin – developed “Field theory”

Conceptual Foundations

Gestalt Psychology grew out of the perceptual theories of physicist Ernst Mach and the experimental work of Christian von Ehrenfels.

Mach described properties of spatial and auditory forms (squares, circles, simple melodies). As perceptual wholes these forms have qualities that

distinguish them from their elements (parts). Its form quality gives an object perceptual or

psychological permanence despite changes in sensation

A song sung by different voices remains the same song.

Max Wertheimer (1880-1943) Wertheimer studied under Stumpf in Berlin, then

Kulpe in Prague (psychology of legal testimony). Fascinated by the apparent motion of objects

outside a train window, he bought a stroboscope to study “where does movement come from?” Schumann loaned him a tachistoscope and

introduced him to Koffka and Kohler (students of Stumpf).

Apparent motion of a white stripe from horizontal to vertical was demonstrated.

Phi Phenomenon Demos

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/mot_reverse-phi/index.html

http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/George_Mather/TwoStrokeFlash.htm

Early stroboscopic entertainment devices

Four Principles of Gestalt Thinking Holistic thinking – the whole is always more

than the sum of its parts, called supersummativity.

Phenomenological basis – analyzing the essence of phenomena is the subject matter of psychology.

Methodology – lifelike experiments using small numbers of subjects.

Isomorphism – psychological processes are directly related to biological (brain) processes.

Tactile Phi Perceptions

Benussi showed that when two points on the skin are stimulated the stimulus appears to move in an arc through space, like a flea hopping.

Von Bekesy produced a tactile phi perception of a vibration jumping from knee to knee or between.

Geldard & Sherrick produced a progression of jumps up the arm from wrist to elbow (like a rabbit).

In all of these, the perceptual experience had a property (movement) not present in the components.

Rubin’s Vase

The figure emerges as a whole, not piecemeal, demonstrating that perceptions are active, lively and organized, not passive receivers of stimuli.

Gestalt Principles of Perception

proximity similarity

good continuation(good gestalt)

closure

Good Gestalts

Poor performance on perceptual closure tests (right) has been associated with right hemisphere impairment.

Generality of Gestalt Principles Closure applies to memory, not just visual

stimuli. Waiters can remember checks until the bill is paid. Zeigarnik Effect -- she gave 18-22 tasks but

interrupted half part-way through. Later, interrupted tasks were 90% more likely to be recalled.

TV cliff-hanger episodes generate tension. Alpha the chimp filled in the missing wedge of a

pie-shaped figure. Results with other chimps produced inconsistent

results, perhaps because they were too young.

Illusions and the Physical World Koffka distinguished between the

geographic environment and the behavioral environment. The man in the snowstorm who crossed a

lake not a plain without knowing it. His behavioral environment was plain, not lake.

In both cases, the horizontal line seems shorter than the vertical one, yet they are the same lengths.

Ascendancy of Gestalt Psychology Despite the turmoil in Germany after WWI,

Gestalt Psychology flourished in the 1920’s. Wolfgang Kohler succeeded Carl Stumpf as

director of the Berlin Psychological Institute. A decade later, the Nazi’s wrecked it. In 1933, Jewish professors, including

Wertheimer, Kohler & Koffka, were expelled from the university (27 psychologists).

Many were assisted in finding jobs in the USA, some at the NYC New School for Social Research (Univ. in Exile).

Nazi Collaboration & Heroic Opposition Germany’s most celebrated philosopher, Heidegger,

supported the Nazi’s anti-intellectualism & Hitler. Under Nazi leadership, Wundt’s lab became a folk-

cell or center for ultra-nationalistic activities. Kohler (not Jewish) vigorously opposed the Nazis.

He wrote the last anti-Nazi article published, mocked the Hitler salute and gave an anti-Nazi lecture.

He refused to take a loyalty oath to Hitler and agitated for reinstatement of Jewish colleagues.

He emigrated in 1935, going to Swarthmore.

The University in Exile

Wertheimer studied human thought and education at the New School for Social Research (1933). Fromm’s interviews with major scientists at the

New School was lost until republished in 1997. Wertheimer wrote “Productive Thinking” (1945)

recommending a Gestalt approach to teaching. He developed new methods of teaching math

and thought insightful productive thinking could be cultivated in all children (not just math geniuses).

Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967) Kohler studied with Stumpf, then went to the

Canary Islands (Tenerife) to study primates and was stranded there for 7 years by WWI.

Kohler questioned the S-R learning approach of Thorndike (trial & error), arguing that animals are capable of reasoning in the right context. He said animals were unable to demonstrate

higher level reasoning in puzzle boxes. He devised situations that animals could

solve using insight.

Barrier Problems (Umwegen)

House Wall

Barrier

G

S

Dogs and one-year-old children could do this task easily but chickens could not.

Experiments with Chimps

Chimps seemed to use insight to solve more complicated problems involving combining tools or using objects to reach bananas, with transfer. They seemed to have moments of insight, jumping

up with inspiration after giving up on a problem. Animals were tested in social situations where

they learned by observation and imitation. Kohler reported his results descriptively without

numbers and statistical interpretations. British intelligence thought he was a spy.

Transposition

I II

II III

Are chickens recognizing a particular gray stimulus or are they making a comparative judgment?

In both tasks the chicken pecks the square on the right.Predicted by

Gestalt theoryPredicted by S-R theory

Other Studies

Apes were able to find buried food immediately but not after a delay – ape memory is limited.

He demonstrated that fear is not a learned response by showing that apes reacted with fear to novel stimuli such as camels or masks not paired with punishment. Sample devil masks

used in Sri Lankan dancing (Ceylon) where the Cingalese people live.

Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)

Lewin studied in Berlin under Stumpf but found Wundtian psychology irrelevant and dull. He organized a series of workers classes to teach

basic skills -- considered subversive by the university.

He volunteered for WWI winning an Iron Cross, then published “The War Landscape” describing the soldier’s experience of the war. He used terms like life space, boundary, direction

and zone, which became important in his later topological theory & described depersonalization of the enemy.

Kurt Lewin

Applied Interests

Returning to the Berlin Psychological Institute, he found Gestalt psychology interesting but had a more applied focus. Two papers on the laborer in agriculture and

industry. In 1919 he returned to the idea of life space,

comparing agricultural and industrial spaces. He criticized the time-and-motion studies of

Frederick Winslow Taylor (Principles of Scientific Management), arguing work has life value and must be humanized.

He inspired Zeigarnik’s research on waiter’s recall.

Topological Psychology

An individual is a complex energy field, a dynamic system of needs and tensions directing behavior:

where behavior (B) is a function f of a person (P) interacting with an environment (E).

Each person moves in a life space that contains goals with positive or negative valence. Goals create vectors that attract or repel.

He used non-quantitative geometry to represent this

),( EPfB

Lewin’s Eggs (Potatoes)

E (P) E NonpsychologicalNonpsychological

Lewin used diagrams like this to describe life spaces

Studies of Child Behavior

Lewin criticized statistical approaches to child behavior and conceptions of “the average child.” The totality of a child’s life must be studied and since

each life space is different, using intensive case study.

An infant’s life space is small and undifferentiated but grows larger and more differentiated with age.

Lewin conducted detour studies similar to Kohler but used topology to explain the results.

“Environmental Forces in Child Behavior & Development.”

Detour Studies

Barrier

C

V

Chocolate

This task is difficult for a young child because the child must move in a direction opposite to the vector to obtain the chocolate.

Cpicnic play with friends

This choice is easy because both options are positive

Conflict Diagrams

Tree ± C

The child wants to climb the tree but is frightened creating an approach/avoidance conflict – vectors wax and wane.

Punishment

Task the child doesn’t want to do

Here the conflict between two undesirable events results in deflection sideways to a third vector R – escape from the field.

RC

Lewin in the USA

Lewin left Germany because of Hitler & anti-semitism at the Univ. of Berlin. Ogden (Kulpe’s student) got him a 2-yr job at Cornell

in home economics studying eating habits of children.

Lewin tried for an appointment at Hebrew Univ. studying displacement of Jews but Freud opposed it

He was appointed at the Univ. of Iowa’s Children Welfare Research Station under a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Research at Univ. of Iowa

People reach for the pie at the back of the counter. The amount of effort expended strengthens the

valence of a goal – goals become more attractive with effort.

Under conditions of frustration, children’s behavior becomes dedifferentiated (regresses to an early stage).

Authoritarian vs democratic leadership styles have a strong influence on children’s behavior. Authoritarian styles lead to more child aggression.

Lewin’s Applied Research

In this too, he stressed democracy over autocracy.

Lewin used “action research” – reflective team problem solving -- to diagnose productivity problems in Harwood Manufacturing. Workers felt productivity goals were unachievable. When allowed to set their own goals and solve their

own productivity problems, in improved considerably.

Lewin used this approach in his own lab, stating that he could not think productively as an individual.

War Efforts

With Margaret Mead, he showed that group discussions led to more behavior change (eating visceral meats) than facts her in dynamic lectures. He also worked on propaganda, leadership,

military morale, and rehabilitation issues. William Wyler’s “The Best Years of Our Lives” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU0d3DVcKoY&N

R=1 To better carry out his activities he founded

the Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT.

Four Major Programs of Research Ways to increase group productivity and counter

the tendency of groups to stray from their goals. Studies of communication and the spread of

rumors. Areas of social perception and interpersonal

relations, group membership and individual adjustment.

Studies in leadership training, leading to the formation of T groups (training groups) designed to open communication and combat prejudice.

Programs to Combat Prejudice Founded the Commission on Community

Interrelations (CCI) for the American Jewish Congress to conduct studies of discrimination. Interviews with customers of black or white clerks

showed no effect of race on sales. This finding was publicized to combat job

discrimination Interviews with people in integrated vs segregated

housing projects showed greater pride & community, less suspicion & hostility in the integrated projects. Most positive results were for 70% black occupancy.

Other Studies

Lewin had found that you can change attitudes by changing behavior, so he encouraged the AJC to challenge the college admissions quota system.

A study of Ways of Handling a Bigot found that in playlets enacting bigotry, 80% of the audience wanted to see the bigot challenged, but calmly.

Lewin died in 1947 of a heart attack, but his work continued at his institutes. Those more interested in applied research split off

and moved to the University of Michigan.

Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy is not really derived from Gestalt psychology. Although it borrowed some terms like closure and

insight (defining them differently), it is recognized to have little to do with Gestalt psychology.

Perls admitted never reading the books of the Gestalt psychologists but dedicated a book to Wertheimer.

Henle: “The most grotesque misunderstanding of Gestalt psychology is the notion that it has some relation to Gestalt therapy…there is nothing in common